


Fragment

by Wicked_Seraph



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Grief/Mourning, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-08-24 21:52:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16648490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Seraph/pseuds/Wicked_Seraph
Summary: A series of drabbles exploring the sometimes-sweet, sometimes-venomous relationships in Banana Fish.30 Days of Writing: A Drabble A Day Challenge. Please heed the "Dead Dove" tag; read at your own discretion.





	1. beginning

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, to err on the side of abundant caution I've included several warnings and tags and rated this "Mature". I might amend these things if they not longer seem fitting.
> 
> It should be noted that **not every drabble/chapter will have these elements**. Each chapter will include a warning in the beginning for any applicable content. Please take the [Dead Dove](http://whatisthehydratrashparty.tumblr.com/post/151103277082/what-does-the-ao3-tag-dead-dove-do-not-eat-mean) warning seriously -- there is a reason it was the first tag I used.

The “beginning” is an ever-shifting goalpost, and it’s becoming more difficult to retrace his steps.

Perhaps the beginning was when he handed over his gun and the hands that received it were cupped in supplication; for a brief moment, he lamented that he had nothing else to fill them with.

Perhaps the beginning was when Eiji’s body soared over concrete and barbed wire and suddenly everything — the wail of police sirens and the metallic snarl of a lead pipe scraping along the ground in warning — was transformed into the murky drone of the womb. Eiji was a tear in the chrysalis and Ash couldn’t help but grasp at the light streaming through.

Maybe, he thinks, it was when he pressed his mouth to Eiji’s, capsule tucked under his tongue, and felt his heart sing from the contact. Eiji tasted like toothpaste and weak coffee diluted with cream; he wasn’t sure why remembering made heat bloom in his stomach, nor why something he’d done countless times felt foreign and thrilling when it was Eiji. 

(Maybe, he thinks, it’s when he wakes up in the middle of the night, replaying the memory of dry lips and Eiji’s soft gasp of surprise, and finds himself covering his mouth to stifle a moan rather than nausea.)


	2. accusation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: references to CSA, child prostitution, and character death.

His dreams are plagued by countless pairs of eyes hurling accusations at him like knives. 

The first pair is a void, dilated pupils swallowing the irides. These eyes are a black hole, the airless of vacuum of space. His face is streaked with tears and snot, and he’s no longer certain if the searing heat splitting him in two is the coach or the knife in his hand; pleas and bargains fall on deaf ears, and Ash remembers that sound can’t travel in space. The police ask why he didn’t scream.

The second pair, hazel, is Siberian winter and gangrene. He’s no longer certain if the “striking shade of green” said in hushed tones refers to his eyes or necrotic skin. No matter what costume Dino has him wear, his limbs feel frostbitten and decayed. He wonders if Dino will finally stop when his fingers become blackened and insensate, or if he’d amputate them as a souvenir. Dino is Satan in the center of Dante’s Hell, beckoning towards the vacant seat at his side.

The third pair is brown like polished mahogany. These eyes are oak trees offering shade in juvie and wooden tables sticky with spilled soup at Chang Dai. They’re chocolates pick-pocketed from the grocery store for Valentine’s Day, melting from body heat and swapped between mouths and tongues drunk with curiosity. 

The third pair is blood drying around the bullet in his chest and the gaping hole in his skull. Shorter’s corpse glares up at him, eyes wide and unfathomably empty.

The fourth pair is emerald and bile, jade and gangrene. Green is sobbing children and whores singing Edith Piaf on 42nd Street. Green is an 8-year-old holding a handgun and a 18-year-old laying his head in Eiji’s lap, gulping down tenderness like milk. Green eyes are worth their weight in gold. 

He wants nothing more than to rip them from their sockets.


	3. restless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: consensual sex, though not explicit.
> 
> Credit goes to Bleed_Peroxide, as the idea of road trip with specific destinations was heavily inspired by her fic “Halcyon Days”.

They count down the time left with every mile ticking by on the odometer. None of them say it, but L.A. feels less like a destination and more like a death sentence; their trip has been filled with too much sunshine to expect anything but a hurricane at its conclusion.

Opportunities are fleeting and stolen. All three of them are collectively buoyant, veins bubbling with youth and fear and restless hormones screaming, tingling like carbonation. They vibrate with restlessness; even Max and Ibe sense the kinetic thrill between them and try to make themselves scarce. They sleep in the cabin of the truck when the sun retreats and their companions gazes begin to linger longer than usual. No one is under the delusion that moments of solitude are accidental.

Landmarks are christened and defiled.

Ohio is trembling hands cupping one another’s faces, exploring the sweet ache of lips and teeth. The moon takes pity on them and hides behind a cloud, shrouding them in the pitch-black of night.

Kansas is laying in open fields and tasting blueberries on each other’s tongues. Shorter and Ash paint Eiji in vivid shades of cobalt and scarlet until his pale skin is a watercolor canvas. Max and Ibe don’t ask why Eiji is stained the same color as their mouths.

Colorado is tangled limbs and bodies inside of a shabby RV covered in a shag rug softer than a rabbit’s fur. It’s difficult to know where Shorter begins and where Eiji ends, impossible to determine where Ash links them together, bodies linked in an organic conduit surging with lust. Shorter is malleable, content to allow Ash to pin his wrists and devour him, or to stroke and nibble at Eiji’s skin until he mewls with pleasure. 

Ash unfurls like a flower beneath Eiji’s lips, ravenous and cautious; it was an unspoken understanding that, just this once, Ash wanted it to be just Eiji. Shorter observes from a safe distance, unable to do anything but watch with his hands hanging limp at his side. Shorter has seen this same act countless times, both as a voyeur and participant, but something about the way Ash and Eiji look at one another is too intimate to intrude on.

Far from envy or desire, Shorter feels relief flood through him.


	4. snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none. This chapter is very, very G-rated.

Snowflakes in 1974 are cold and sweet, a small burst of winter on his tongue.

He doesn’t initially believe Griffin when he says that you can eat them — he’s never thought to drink rain or nibble on grass, so the idea of eating the white orbs falling from the sky is utterly foreign. His eyes narrow in suspicion until Griffin tips his head back, lets his tongue loll out, and grins as a snowflake lands squarely in the middle.

“Now you try it, Aslan.”

Aslan sticks his tongue out eagerly but can’t help but feel envious — his older brother is tall and catches them easily; he barely comes up to Griffin’s hip. His shoulders slowly droop, visibly deflating as snowflake after snowflake eludes him.

“Not fair. You keep getting all the good ones first!”

Griffin smiles apologetically and bends into a squat, beckoning towards him.

“Here, hop on. That’ll make us even.”

Aslan scuttles obediently up Griffin’s back, settling on top of his broad shoulders. Seeing the world from Griffin’s eyes —  _higher_ , he thinks proudly — is a rare treat, and for a moment he forgets the snowfall, eyes wide and shimmering with curiosity. He can see their house past the mounds of snow, as well as the diner further in the distance; though covered in a sheet of snow, he can see smoke rising from the chimney and his father’s rusted pick-up in the driveway. The world that seems to tower over him suddenly seems very small; he knows there are probably words in Griffin’s books and poetry to explain the strange feeling that washes over him.

“Go ahead and try catching one now. Don’t chase after them — let them come to you. Snowflakes can tell when you’re angry at them.”

He didn’t think snow had feelings — but if Griffin said it, it must be true. Aslan tips head back, pokes his tongue out, and waits patiently, watching snowflakes drift by.


	5. haze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: CSA, alcohol use.

The first time it’s offered, he refuses — his father told him that he couldn’t drink until he was a grown-up. Aslan doesn’t want Coach to be sad, but imagining his father’s disappointment makes his stomach do backflips and his eyes sting.  

Still, his father also taught him his p’s and q’s, and he minds them even while his heart races and he wonders why the room suddenly feels cold.

The coach seems nice until he isn’t. 

The coach sounds strange and smells horrible, nothing like the person who taught him how to swing properly and cheered almost as loud as his brother when the ball hit the bat with a sharp crack. This person makes his insides feel like they’re scalding, lapping at his tears as though they were sweet. Aslan can taste them — they aren’t.

He’s not sure what’s happening, except that it hurts too much to scream.

Aslan returns home with tattered clothes and wide eyes, not sure if he’s learned enough words to tell his father why his heart feels heavy. 

“You said I couldn’t drink ‘til I was a grown-up. The coach said I could have one, but I told him ‘no, thank you’ just like you told me to."

His father’s face darkens.

“Take him up on the offer next time. If you do, don’t tell me.”

\- - - 

Aslan doesn’t accept the offer — not the second time, not the fifteenth time, and not the last time when his fingers tremble around a handgun and the coach’s blood is hot on his cheek.

“I’m not a grown-up yet,” he whispers. “I can’t.”

\- - - 

The second person to offer him a drink wears sunglasses and reeks of tobacco smoke; his father smoked, but it never seemed to be buried in his pores and every fiber of his suit.

Ash considers his offer. He’s not supposed to drink until he’s grown up — but he suspects that he’s also not supposed to know words like “cum” or “whore”, either. Rules like that seem to excite the men Dino passes him off to, though only when he breaks them.

Ash smirks; by now he’s learned to tilt his head a certain way and pretend that he has a secret to settle on the correct expression. Predictably, Marvin’s eyes fill with joy. 

“Sure, why not? Is it tasty?”

He knows it isn’t, if the smell is anything to go by, but Marvin likes when he acts stupid.

“It’s an acquired taste.”

“Acquired?”

“Means that you won’t like it until you’ve tried it a few times.”

“Like this?”

Marvin’s eyes widen, and Ash covers his mouth and gives a short bark of laughter to conceal the small dry-heave that threatens to give him away.

\- - - 

The haze that washes over him is heavenly, a merciful golden film obscuring his vision.  The cheap beer tastes awful but is far from the worst thing he’s tasted. 

It’s easy to let his mind wander and pretend that this could feel good.

The rickety dock in Cape Cod.

Sunlight like a million fingers prickling his flesh.

A puppy licking at his face, his arms; the illusion sours when a wagging tongue travels between his thighs, licking at his entrance and leaving a trail of viscous slime in its wake. 

Maybe it’s a snail.

The sunny, cloudless sky in Cape Cod blackens with rain clouds and thunder, the rumbling in the distance growing louder. 

Ash is struck by lightning, rent in two as the illusion shatters like glass.


	6. flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: non-explicit mentions of CSA (though brief) and consensual sex.

Fire is the naked orb in a cloudless sky, smothering him with summer’s heat. He wonders if it’s a coincidence that though his brother and the baseball coach are the same height, Coach’s shadow seems larger.

* * *

Fire is a buoy adrift in a sea of velvet, silk, and antique wood. There’s searing heat between his thighs and bitter warmth in his mouth; he focuses on the beacon nestled within the fireplace, imagining snow and cocoa.

Flames lap and bite his flesh until the line between perversion and immolation vanishes. He wonders, not for the last time, if it’s possible to become nothing more than bone and ash.

* * *

Fire is a candle’s gaze casting Eiji’s face in warm golds and sables. Fire is destruction and grief, he thinks — but fire is also reading the newspaper by candlelight with Eiji’s head in his lap. Fire is roasting chestnuts at Christmas and s’mores in July, fingers sticky with singed marshmallows and chocolate. Fire is the delicious flutter in his stomach when he licks the sweetness from his fingers and Eiji’s eyes follow, when Eiji’s tongue finds an errant streak of chocolate at the corner of his mouth and Ash has to resist the urge to claim it.

Ash thinks of the dimpled, crooked pottery he molded beneath his fingertips and the kiln with fire as its womb. Fire weaves mud into art, and Ash wonders if there’s a kiln in the world big enough for him.

* * *

Fire is the curiosity in Eiji’s eyes and the thrill that runs through him in reply. It ignites somewhere near the base of his spine, seeking every nerve and settling it ablaze. The heat that engulfs him is sweet and heady; it feels simultaneously like drowning and gasping for breath.

His body sings with pleasure, greedy and demanding. Eiji’s lips and teeth dye his skin brilliant shades of crimson but somehow still it’s not enough, will never be until Eiji’s desire consumes him entirely. He’s no longer certain if the breathless, needy sounds pouring from his mouth are even words, but Eiji’s flushed skin and wicked tongue are kindling and flame, fuel and fire as he abandons himself to the heat that connects them.


	7. formal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none applicable.

Ash’s ribs feel like weights crushing his lungs, but he’ll be damned if he gives Blanca the satisfaction of knowing.

“Please do not overexert yourself. If you’re injured, there’s little benefit to continuing.”

As usual, Blanca wears an easy grin and unreadable eyes; it’s impossible to know when his charming smile reaches them. Blanca’s eyes are dark and seemingly bottomless, devouring emotion directed towards them without reflecting any in return.

“Fuck off, Blanca. I’m not an old geezer like you.”

Ash keeps his voice low, hoping it hides how thin and labored his breathing is. He tastes mud and copper in his mouth but doesn’t remember Blanca ever striking him in the face.

“My apologies. I shall wait until you wish to continue.”

Blanca’s smile widens as he settles into a low squat next to Ash’s supine form. Ash sneaks a glance at Blanca’s knuckles; they’re clean and bloodless. Blanca hasn’t even broken a sweat, but the smudge of dirt on his white trousers sends a satisfied ripple through Ash’s veins.

“Your pants are scuffed up.”

Blanca follows Ash’s gaze, twisting his face into an exaggerated frown when he sees the stain for Ash’s benefit. 

“How unsightly. I’m afraid this will have to conclude our training for the evening — Monsieur would be most displeased if I appeared before him looking so unkempt.”

Blanca doesn’t offer Ash a hand, and Ash doesn’t request it. He can feel Blanca’s cool, impassive gaze on him as he shifts into an approximation of a normal gait, bones and muscles creaking with pain. 

Blanca is all honorifics and formalities, pleasantries and flattery punctuated by a smile smooth as glass. Even when speaking in thinly-veiled threats and denigration, words pour forth like honeyed barbs. More than once, Ash had found himself on the business end of one of Blanca’s silver-tongued critiques, unsure as to whether he ought to thrash or thank him.

Blanca’s hands are warm and calloused; he knows that Blanca has touched him, but never unless it was necessary, and never without a rare flash of hesitation in his eyes — an expression that somehow begs permission and forgiveness. Blanca is somewhere between permafrost and the first trickle of water freed from winter’s grasp. Far from alienating, being offered frigidity and clearly-defined boundaries is a welcome respite; Ash has had enough heat and forced intimacy to last him two lifetimes.

Blanca does not ask questions, either, but rarely seems surprised when Ash finds himself reminiscing about Griffin or how much he wishes he could see something other than Dino’s operas, “his stupid goddamn operas, and it’s always _Don Giovanni_ when he’s horny”. Before he can stop himself, his rage screams for an exit and finds it in a series of feral cries and wide kicks. Blanca is silent, countering but not discouraging any of Ash’s strikes. Ash isn’t sure when or why he stops — one minute Blanca is a conduit for the white-hot rage coursing through him, and the next minute he finds himself barely conscious, limp and immobile in Blanca’s arms as he’s carried to Dino’s private physician.

Blanca regards him quietly from the bedside chair, his eyes reproachful, and Ash knows without asking that he’s unlikely to be granted a second opportunity to test Blanca’s patience.

Blanca never promises anything, either. One afternoon he simply ushers Ash into his car, wearing a well-tailored suit and unusually sunny smile; Blanca’s mysterious excitement is contagious, and in spite of himself Ash finds it difficult to smother the giddy curiosity dancing in his stomach.

“Try to look presentable, Ash,” he says lightly, though his tone brooks none of Ash’s usual fondness for being contrary. Ash changes obediently in the back seat; the black suit and tie are a perfect mirror of Blanca’s. Blanca parks the car, and the blond finds himself standing beneath the dazzling lights along Broadway, hands trembling with excitement. 

“After you, sir.”

Ash looks up towards Blanca, hoping that the words lodged in his throat have somehow made it to his eyes. Judging by the warm smile and firm hand hovering just near the small of his back, guiding him onward, he suspects Blanca knows.


	8. companion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: consensual sex. Takes place several years into Garden of Light.

There is a gaping hole inside Eiji’s heart. 

Sing knows most of the contours of its outline, though it goes without saying that only Eiji knows them fully. 

Sing imagines himself curling inside of it, swallowed by the yawning gap where his body ends and the edges of the outline begin. 

Sometimes it’s easy to pretend that he can be enough. He pretends that if he’s fast enough to fill those corners of memory Eiji seeks that neither of them will notice how much wider the remaining gap becomes. 

Sing isn’t sure what to call the inevitable culmination of the strange, melancholic lust between them. 

There are teeth and moans and bodies slick with evidence of their coupling. There are low, breathy laughs and tongues exploring the hidden alleys of one another’s bodies. Sing can hear Eiji’s heart race and can taste the sweat on his skin; the flesh beneath him and around him is pliant and welcoming. Eiji is silent when he shudders with the force of his release, biting his lip with eyes clenched shut.

Sing and Eiji refuse to say one another’s names. 

* * *

There’s a pattern to Eiji’s anxiety. 

Up until the day before a gallery opens, Eiji is quiet and withdrawn. He begins cooking again as a way to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied; Eiji never tells Sing the exact day —  _you’d just worry about me the whole time_ , he mutters — but Sing’s learned to judge the date’s proximity by how badly Eiji burns rice.

Eiji calls it  _okoge_ ; Sing calls it  _guoba_. For both, it means a thin layer of crisp, singed rice at the bottom of the cooking pot. Sing claims it’s his guilty pleasure, and Eiji likes to pretend that it’s intentional.  _Guoba_ means that Eiji is a hair’s breadth away from collapsing into his arms, and Sing is never far when it happens.

Like clockwork, Eiji’s anxiety begins to bleed out until his arms are wrapped around Sing’s neck and his legs straddle his waist. Eiji’s lips are feverish and desperate, little more than an open wound begging Sing to suck out the poison. Eiji alternately begs and apologizes until Sing swallows his voice. Sing devours anything and everything Eiji offers, sweet moans and bitter pleasure. He likes to imagine that the bites and bruises peppered across Eiji’s neck, trailing beneath the sheet providing Eiji a measure of modesty, chase away phantoms with blond hair.

Eiji almost immediately drifts off to sleep afterwards, boneless and warm against Sing’s chest. Eiji is quiet when Sing runs his fingers through his hair, but the way his breaths slow into a gentle snore suggest that he finds it equally comforting.

The tension between them feels like release, but also like sepsis.

More than sex, not quite making love. 

More than friends, not quite soulmates.


	9. move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: consensual sex.

Ash surges with kinetic force — his feet tap anxiously, his fingers strum against the nearest surface, he nibbles on his lips as one of the few tells that something has truly made him anxious.

Ash is constant movement, too dizzying to focus on for more than a few seconds at a time. 

* * *

Ash revels in moments of stillness.

Stillness might mean blearily opening one’s eyes as sunlight streams through the windows. He likes to let awareness trickle in before he moves — heavy warmth on his chest or soft breaths against his neck. A low hum of pleasure resounds — not quite arousal, but too distinct to mistake as mere affection. 

However, Ash also relishes stillness that requires obedience.

Bones and Kong are mere footsteps away from the closed bedroom door. Eiji’s back is pressed against the wall and he can feel the vibration of their footfalls against his skin, slick with sweat. He would worry about sound, but Ash’s fingers are thrust unceremoniously in his mouth, silencing him with a small whimper of surprise.

“Don’t let them hear you, or this stops.”

Ash's voice is a soft growl, lips close enough that Eiji can feel them move against his ear. The calloused hand wrapped around him strokes once, agonizingly slow, and before he can stop himself he bites down on Ash’s fingers to stifle the moan in the back of his throat. Ash, far from deterred, strokes Eiji’s cock and tongue in vulgar imitation of one another.

"Good boy,” he croons, his voice tinged with unmistakable desire. Eiji trembles, sucking on Ash’s fingers messily as his tongue explores the scars and roughness writ on his skin. Ash’s other hand quickens its pace, twisting around Eiji with a precision that leaves him weak-kneed, unable to do more than thrust into Ash’s grasp and lap at his fingers obediently. Ash nips at Eiji’s neck; his seeming calm is betrayed by the small, urgent moans Eiji can feel against his skin. Small bursts of mingled pain and pleasure shoot electricity down his spine and into the palm of Ash’s hand.

Eiji’s free hand reaches up, stroking Ash’s bare hip almost too softly to be tangible.

“May I?” Eiji’s words are sloppy and muffled around Ash’s fingers, but Ash seems to understand them regardless.

“Please,” Ash breathes, removing his fingers from Eiji’s mouth. He cards his fingers through Eiji’s hair, bringing their lips together. He runs his tongue along Eiji’s lips, wordlessly entreating, and Eiji parts them in acceptance.

The friction between Ash’s hand and Eiji’s arousal dissipates, and he knows without looking where the moist, lewd sound between his legs is coming from. Eiji’s fingers follow curiously; Ash’s skin is feverish and covered in goosebumps where Eiji grazes him. Eiji wraps his fingers around Ash; far from unaffected, Ash moans quietly in his mouth when Eiji mirrors his ministrations. Ash is sensitive and slick within his grasp, and his hips jerk each time Eiji’s hand engulfs him. It becomes difficult to tell where he begins and Ash ends, slickness and hardness mingling with the sound of their muffled groans of pleasure.

“Eiji—!”

Ash rips his mouth away from Eiji’s, hissing under his breath.

“Please — I —”

“Are you sure, Ash?”

“Yes, Eiji,  _please—”_

As if to punctuate his words, almost too quiet to be heard, Ash turns to face the wall, Eiji’s chest flush with Ash’s back, and guides Eiji’s fingers inward. Eiji buries his face against Ash’s neck, smothering his moan as his fingers are swallowed by impossibly-tight heat. Ash leans against an arm braced against the wall, biting on it to stifle his own responding cries. Ash’s body is welcoming, drawing him in further with every cautious intrusion. Eiji’s fingers scissor and stretch carefully, seeking until they find a small, textured region. Ash’s entire body jolts violently beneath him, Ash whimpering in pleasure around the teeth buried in his arm. Eiji strokes, gently, and Ash veritably melts around him; though he had insisted on silence, Ash does little to stifle the low, dreamy sighs escaping him.

“Does that feel good?”

Eiji tastes Ash’s skin, memorizes the way it gives and blooms crimson under his teeth. Ash nods quickly, and with a shudder Eiji feels Ash’s body tighten around his fingers for emphasis.

“Bet it’d feel better if it were something else,” Ash purrs, looking over his shoulder to meet Eiji’s gaze.

"I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”

“Then shut me up.”

Eiji crashes their lips together, overwhelmed and breathless; Ash cranes his head back to meet him, and despite his concerns ( _doesn’t_ _that hurt? isn’t that uncomfortable?)_ he can tell that whatever discomfort exists is overshadowed by their shared urgency. Ash’s tongue licks and explores the inside of his mouth; the heat pooling in his stomach threatens to drown him, and it’s all he can do to remember to breathe.

Eiji withdraws his fingers, taking a deep breath before closing the distance between their bodies, both of them gasping from the heat between them. 

Eiji remains still, both out of courtesy and to calm the thoughts racing and mingling inside his skull. 

_so warm and hot feels so good i love him i love him so close i love him don’t move yet so good_

It’s impossible to tell if Ash’s stillness is borne of restraint or carefully-hidden agony; Eiji, fearing the latter, remains motionless despite every cell in his body screaming for him to seek more of the sweet heat surrounding him. He licks at Ash’s lips softly, hoping the question he’s afraid to give voice to is obvious.

_Does it hurt?_

“Eiji…”

Ash’s voice is husky and quiet, almost inaudible over the sound of their strained breaths.

“Yes, Ash?”

Ash cants his hips, and Eiji gulps as the friction sends sparks of desire along his spine.

“ _Move.”_


	10. silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none

Gold was the thick, carefully-woven thread on the “good luck” charm always nestled safely within his pocket.  

Gold was an egg yolk trickling dangerously close to the rim of a breakfast plate, quickly scooped up with toast or Ash’s tongue when he wanted to see Eiji scowl.

Gold were the rings or necklaces that Ash wore like fetters on those occasions when he tussled his hair, wore cheap cologne, and refused to tell Eiji where he was going. Eiji pretended to think that Ash’s humorless replies were jokes, smiling serenely to hide the lump of horror in the back of his throat.

Gold was the sunset that drenched their apartment in so many variations of the same warm color — Eiji didn’t think it was possible for there to be so many shades of gold. Ash’s eyes and hair caught the light and transformed it; when Ash would lay his head in his lap, the strands that spilled over his legs became a kaleidoscope. 

_Gold -_ _“aurum”_ _in Latin. Aurum is for Ash_ , Eiji muses idly, running his hands through blonde hair and watching it flow through his fingers like silk.

* * *

Silver was the moonlight that sliced through the solemn murkiness of the apartment, catching dust particles floating by. They looked like small, harmless shards of glass coasting nearby; Eiji liked to imagine them caressing his pulse points, wondering how many it would take before he could understand Ash’s feelings. 

Silver was the crucifix Sing wore around his neck when he switched from the low, affectionate gutter slang of their shared home to emotionless business jargon. Consonants reappeared and vowels were carefully enunciated; it was the same instrument playing an unfamiliar tune, a guitar being strummed to accompany an opera. Eiji knew that if Sing had ever been the type to pray, those gods had been long-since left to rot and waste away, forgotten and nameless. 

Silver were the utensils that acted as a boundary between them. Eiji would become paralyzed with grief, and Sing would spoon-feed him porridge or broth until a full stomach lulled him sleep. Color returned to Eiji’s cheeks, slowly, and Sing would offer him a bite from his pie, pressing the fork to Eiji’s lips until he parted them, accepting the offering, accepting Sing. Sing knew he could have easily just given the fork to him instead, but he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t relish the dangerous warmth that filled him when Eiji humored his curiosity.

Silver was Sing’s skin illuminated by his nightlight; the bulb was nearly dead, and the weak light seemed to sap the warmth from his complexion. Eiji lay drenched in sweat, shaking and nauseous from the feverish nightmares punctuated by blond hair and a blood-stained letter. 

Each time, Sing would hold his arms open; each time, Eiji took solace in how perfectly he seemed to fit within them. Eiji and Sing’s body heat mingled until it was impossible to tell who was warming whom; both of them trembled from the shared contact, and the droplets that fell and collected between them shone like melted silver.


	11. prepared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: allusions to CSA

Spontaneity was dangerous, a cliff with no jagged edges or rope to warn about the impending drop.

Aslan had learned to find patterns in how often he was cornered by the baseball coach. Summer meant coming home with a baseball uniform stained with clay and dirt. Winter, when Coach wasn’t busy teaching baseball and grinding children into bones, meant coming home with a sweater speckled with snowflakes and teardrops that, thankfully, were only visible to him. 

The spring just before his eighth birthday, Aslan learned how to plan. He learned when his father drank and left his gun attended, and he learned how to smuggle one just beneath his waistband.

Blanca taught Ash to view the world in ultraviolet, and Ash learned how to transmute raw information into a blade. More importantly, Blanca taught Ash when to demure and when to unsheathe his proverbial knife; Ash learned to enjoy the bittersweet pleasure of having his intellect underestimated while the fruits of his labor ripened. Blanca always seemed miles ahead of Ash, having formed countermeasure after countermeasure during their mock war simulations, and the student couldn’t help but wonder how the world must have looked to someone so deeply ensnared in its workings. 

Ash had learned how to see the world less like a computer algorithm and more like an organic chessboard that bled. Sentimentality was dangerous, but it made him ferocious; more than once, those who sneered at the chessboard realized too late that it was just as reckless to pursue a pawn as the queen. It was seldom that he found an opponent who mourned a captured pawn as profoundly as he did. 

_At least in chess_ , he would think,  _you can reclaim them_.


	12. knowledge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: allusions to CSA

More than once, Blanca wished he knew less.

It was impossible to extricate himself from the grimy, sulfurous underbelly of society; he was merely a thread woven into its fabric. 

He knew how to pluck screams like music from one’s throat, and how to silence them when the sound became grating. He disliked the word “murder”, but admitted that regardless of the speed with which he dispatched a target, the end result was the same. He liked to think that when he was tasked with torturing them, ending their life was the only form of kindness he could offer.

He knew what kind of contractors he attracted, none of them worth remembering. All of them had vices, and rarely were his targets unrelated to them. 

Monsieur Golzine was no exception.

Blanca was tasked not with assassinating the scowling blond, but to take a chisel to his jagged edges and find the devil Golzine seemed convinced was nestled within. Blanca knew better than to assume that Golzine’s interest in Ash was unrelated to his beauty; Golzine’s eyes lingered as though gazing upon a favored concubine. Ash seemed to know instinctively when he was being watched; Blanca found it telling that Ash did not preen or demure to such attention, instead recoiling like a snake.

In time, he knew why Ash hated men and baseball, why he hated anything that reminded him of leather, latex, or antiseptic. 

He also knew to be suspicious when Ash’s voice took on a peculiar timbre, reminiscent of honey or the whisper of rumpled bed sheets. He knew precisely what Ash had been taught to do, and knew when Ash was testing him. 

It was a game Ash played, wanting to trust Blanca yet wanting to find a reason not to. Ash’s voice said “come hither” while his eyes, dreamy and hooded, screamed “stay back”.

“Whatever you’re attempting to do, it will not work,” Blanca had drawled, not looking up from his paperback.

Ash didn’t reply, settling onto the opposite sofa. His posture was deceptively languid; it looked natural, but every single one of Ash’s best features caught the light just so. His hair looked like gold when drenched in natural sunlight, drawing attention to his swanlike neck and hint of exposed collarbone. His lips had settled into the shadow of a smirk.

“Won't it?”

Blanca eyed him steadily. Ash met his gaze, allowing the ice in his expression to thaw into a blatantly erotic smile. He crossed his legs, leaning back with a raised eyebrow. 

If Ash were a woman, it would be an invitation he might consider under ideal circumstances. Not for the first time, Blanca’s stomach turned at how easily Ash slipped into the role of a doe-eyed temptress. 

“I’m not interested in pretty boys who think batting their eyes at me will make me forget the work I’ve assigned them.”

“You’re right. You prefer the responsible type, don’t you?”

Blanca had only heard the kind of low, throaty laugh that followed when his lips had found a particularly sensitive part of a woman’s body; he shuddered to think how Ash had learned to mirror it.

“I love all types, but you’re not one of them.”

Blanca rose from his chair, setting his book down on the coffee table without marking his place. He crossed the short distance between the chair and the sofa where Ash sat like a gift waiting to be unwrapped, placing a hand against Ash’s cheek, guiding his gaze towards his own. He leaned close to Ash, close enough to see his eyes waver for a moment, to feel the catch in Ash’s breath against his cheek. For the first time, Ash looked uncertain. 

Ash looked afraid.

“You will not seduce me, Ash,” he said slowly — cruelly, he hoped, for it was the only way Ash would understand. He knew Ash could find concessions in otherwise outright rejections, and nothing short of permafrost and razor wire would be sufficient for him to remain convinced of a boundary. Ash’s pride was secondary to his trust.

Ash gulped, his cheeks reddening as his bravado seemed to crumble into humiliation. His eyes were watery but defiant. 

_It seems he found the razor wire._

Blanca removed his hand from Ash’s cheek, sighing before heading towards the door.

“I know what you’re trying to do. If I’ve done something to cause you to doubt me, then tell me. Otherwise, our lessons will resume only when you’re willing to drop this farce.”

Ash looked away, ostensibly staring at the fountain just outside the window. Blanca knew Ash was too proud to hang his head, too ashamed to reply or apologize. 

Blanca took his leave, leaving Ash  to his thoughts.

* * *

Dinner with Monsieur Golzine passed with little fanfare, though more than once Golzine would look up at Blanca from his glass of wine, clearly perplexed by Ash’s silence. Ash never spoke unless required to, but his silence now was pensive rather than petulant, lips set in something closer to a pout than a scowl.

Blanca had just settled into bed in his private quarters with a book in hand when he heard two tentative knocks on his door. Blanca couldn’t help but smile to himself — maids knocked three times; Golzine never bothered to.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning in the courtyard, Ash.”


	13. denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none.

Eiji’s life is firmly divided into three segments.

“Before Ash” is pastels and sepias and murky sound, as though submerged at the bottom of the ocean. 

“Ash” is dazzling technicolor, Ash’s brilliance filtered through spectra he didn’t think were possible for humans to see. Eiji’s senses crackled with awareness. “Ash” is crisp winter air and feeling every snowflake on his skin, tasting those that fell on his tongue. “Ash” is Eiji shivering with pleasure from Ash’s warmth against him.

“After Ash” is monochrome. “After Ash” is severed nerves and bones made of ice. “After Ash” is forced denial: weak tea and bland porridge. “After Ash” is a yawning chasm where his heart should be. 

* * *

Eiji’s life is divided into three segments. 

A fourth has begun to emerge.

Sing adds just enough spice to his congee to make Eiji’s mouth burn from the heat; he gulps down milk to soothe his tongue while Sing howls with laughter.

The world wavers for just a moment, and he swears that the sleet black of Sing’s eyes look brown. He looks at his own hands, pale as an egg shell, and finds that they seem rosier, a single drop of pigment in a glass close to overflowing. 

For the first time in eight years, he can feel his own heart beat.

* * *

Eiji’s life is divided into four segments.

“Sing” is the dewy emergence of spring, fresh greens and pale bulbs beginning to sprout. “Sing” is chirping birds and humidity as April showers desperately coax the earth to breathe.

“Sing” is low, simmering warmth pooling in his stomach, rising in his cheeks. Sing is beautiful, he realizes with a start, taut muscles and dark eyes that seemed to burn when they met his. Sing is dark where Ash was light, the moon to Ash’s sun. 

“Sing” is learning how to drink in another human’s body heat and allow it to smolder. “Sing” is glaciers melting and spring water flooding through him. Sing seemed to know instinctively why Eiji curled in his lap, flushed and gasping against him yet too frightened to give voice to the turbulent hunger. 

“Sing” is a fireplace providing the sole illumination in their shared apartment, casting Sing’s face in vivid shades of amber. It’s impossible to breathe, the space between them dense with a decade of fragile, unspoken want. Eiji’s lips tremble against Sing’s, slowly learning their shape and temperature. Sing sighs, eyelids fluttering shut, and a hot tongue traces the line where their mouths meet. Eiji feels a violent thrill course along his spine, his vision dyed in saturated crimson and cobalt.

For now, he’s content to memorize the shape of Sing’s kiss and relish how beautiful he looks in color.


	14. wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none

The wind was cruel and left goosebumps along his skin when he realized why he trembled under Blanca’s gaze. Blanca had smiled at him apologetically, all the while falling back on honorifics that were a knife carving into his chest. 

“-sama” was for someone whose respect was purchased. “-sama” was for someone with a yard of razor wire and concrete between them. “-sama” was someone he’d forget, less than a memory the moment New York City was reduced to an ant’s prison from the vantage point of a plane cabin. 

“-sama” was someone whose hand he would kiss and feel nothing but subjugation, no warmth other than the slow burn of the champagne shared between them.

Yut-Lung had crumpled to the floor, curling up with a pillow pressed against his chest.

He took a deep breath, allowing the exhale to devolve into a shuddering sob. 

It still smelled like Blanca.

* * *

The wind was warm and sticky with humidity when he realized that time had made him weaker, had done little to temper the way his blood burned under Blanca’s gaze. Blanca had looked up from his novel, eyes wide with undisguised shock. His name had passed Blanca’s lips as a low whisper, too stunned to remember formalities.

The wind smelled like sunscreen and the welcoming brine of the ocean. When he sat at the edge of Blanca’s lounge chair, he could also smell his cologne. He was a sentimental man, apparently; he could remember embracing a cushion that smelled like this cologne five years prior. How he’d wept when a careless servant washed it, erasing the only trace of Blanca’s presence.

“I told you, Blanca, I am a very persistent man. You hid your tracks poorly,” he said, extending a hand towards Blanca’s drink. Blanca eyed him suspiciously but did not refuse, meeting Yut-Lung halfway.

“Why are you here?” he asked curtly. His tone was dark and dense with years of unspoken hostility. There was something else, however, an unfamiliar curiosity. Blanca never asked questions he did not already know the answer to; Yut-Lung suspected this had not changed, but couldn’t imagine what response was expected.

He didn’t answer, instead taking Blanca’s glass and noting the faint imprint of Blanca’s lips, a gap in the crystals lining the rim. He brought his mouth to the imprint, taking a long sip and watching Blanca’s reaction.

None.

“Did they use salt or sugar?” Yut-Lung asked. 

No response. 

Yut-Lung trailed a tongue along the rim, not breaking eye contact. Blanca’s eyes were more reminiscent of a hawk than a man, following him unerringly.

“Sugar. You’re full of surprises, aren't you?” 

“You’re stalling. Why are you here?” Blanca said, reclaiming the glass. He brought his lips to the rim, draining the rest from the precise spot Yut-Lung’s tongue had lingered. The bite had disappeared from his tone, the corner of his mouth quirked in the shadow of a smile.

“To visit an old friend. I get a little sentimental around this time of the year and New York is dreadfully cold.”

“The tropics have a way of thawing the chill. I can recommend a hotel in the area if you plan on staying.” 

“Or?” He gave voice to the unspoken question at the end of Blanca’s sentence, allowing his voice to drop to a low purr. 

"We could start with mine. I’d be more than happy to show you the amenities offered.”

“Lead the way, Blanca,” he said, relishing how the name sounded on his tongue, silk and velvet. He wrapped an arm around Blanca’s waist, feeling his bones thaw as Blanca indulged him.


	15. order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: none.
> 
> This is actually... very sillly. I originally set out to write something D/s-themed for Ash and Eiji, but couldn't bring myself to write anything terribly serious today. I might come back to this D/s idea later, but for now I'm content to settle on borderline crack!D/s featuring ducks.

Allowing himself to fall, to drift in simple monochrome, is sweeter than he expected.

It’s a relief to have simple expectations, predictable cause and effect.

Eiji gives orders; Ash obeys. Eiji’s joy is contagious, and he can’t help but feel drunk with it.

* * *

"You could try listening to me every once in a while,” Eiji pouted. Eiji had warned Ash not to sample the curry, still steaming; Ash did so and found himself with a burned finger and bruised ego.

“You wouldn’t know what to do if I actually did.”

Eiji gives him a surprisingly cocky smirk over his shoulder before returning to focus on stirring.

“I disagree,” he says.

“Really?”

“Really. “

A small, defiant flame burns just beneath Ash’s ribs, as well as an excited, unfamiliar kind of curiosity.

“Fine, then. For the rest of the day, I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

“Anything? No matter what?”

Ash nods. “Anything.”

Eiji eyes him dubiously.

“Take two steps back.”

Ash obeys, heels flush with the edge of the sofa.

“Take two to the left.”

“Okay….?”

“Two steps back.”

“Eiji, you do realize I’m—”

“Sit. You will stay out of the kitchen until I’m done with the curry. No more burned fingers,” he says. His tone is light, but Ash can tell a part of him secretly enjoys playing the authoritarian.

Ash does as he’s told, turning on the TV. He watches the pictures but barely registers them, veins thrumming with a strange giddiness. He knows he should feel let down from such an anticlimactic order, but he finds the scraps more of an appetizer than anything else.

* * *

Eiji’s directives are often infuriating and always reasonable.

Ash reaches for a beer; Eiji gives a soft cough of disapproval, and the beer is returned to the fridge. Eiji hands him a glass of water, lips upturned in smug gratitude.

Ash mutters under his breath as the alarm sounds and Eiji tells him to get up, tapping his shoulder twice.

_That wasn’t a request._

Ash rolls out of bed, hoping every iota of petty venom he can muster shows in his expression. Eiji’s smile is angelic as he draws the bath, testing its temperature with the tips of his fingers. The slow, languid way he trails them along the water’s surface is arresting, somewhere between arrogance and flirtation.

“Sometimes you remind me of a duck, Ash. You look very calm on the surface while paddling furiously underneath the water. For all a duck’s paddling, sometimes he doesn’t seem to go very far, does he?”

“I guess not,” Ash hedges, wondering where the conversation is going. It feels like a lukewarm lecture.

“Sometimes the duck is better off not paddling at all. Not resisting,” he says, fingers motionless as they both watch a shower loofah float peacefully along the ripples Eiji created. Ash smiled faintly, retracing the path Eiji’s fingers had taken, generating a new cascade of ripples along the water’s surface.

“Everyone gets the wrong idea about ducks — that they look calm but have to fight against gravity to stay afloat, that they’re at constant war with rivers and ponds. Ducks are naturally buoyant, though. They don’t fight at all. They really only paddle when they’re fighting against a current — when their environment is changing, when they’re not sure how to adjust.”

“And when the current stabilizes?”

“No paddling. No resisting. A happy, obedient duck,” Ash says, grinning.

Eiji looks at him steadily for a moment before a small smile shatters his composure.

“Then quack.”

Ash looks him dead in the eye. He wants to laugh, but Eiji’s order feels less superficial than it was meant to.

“Quack.”


End file.
